


Sabotage, Collateral, Blackmail, and the Burglar's Apprentice

by Eliyes



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, Blackmail, Crimes & Criminals, Gen, Highlander Holiday Short Cuts Challenge, Other character(s) mentioned - Freeform, Richie has a different teacher, Timeskip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 20:56:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17009061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliyes/pseuds/Eliyes
Summary: Amanda wasn't expecting to be caught on this job, but the kid holding her tire hostage and trying to blackmail her into breaking in to a government office gets her attention. And that changes some things.





	Sabotage, Collateral, Blackmail, and the Burglar's Apprentice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wreath_of_Laurels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wreath_of_Laurels/gifts).



**Seacouver, 1986**

Amanda felt justified in considering herself a master thief. She'd been in the business for over a thousand years, after all; she'd had plenty of time to learn the trade and she made a point of keeping her skills sharp and up-to-date. 

Sure, sometimes things didn't go to plan. Unexpected circumstances cropped up in even the best-prepared heist – moreso in the type of high-risk burglaries she preferred. That was part of the thrill! And she was _very_ good at landing on her feet and turning fortune to her favour.

Which made it all the more galling that her getaway car was missing a wheel.

This wasn't even a difficult job! She was doing a string of fairly uncomplicated commissions to pad out her nest egg while she laid low after burning her most recent public identity. Mostly not very fun, though this one at least had spite going for it, since she was stealing back an art object that had been stolen in the first place by Zachary Blaine, her locked-up and much lamented ex-partner. Amanda had studied the blueprints and the security set-up, and gotten in and out clean. She'd even timed it for when MacLeod was out of town!

But one of her tires was missing, the vehicle held up by a stack of bricks, of all things.

She resisted the urge to slam the driver's side door, but indulged in stomping around to the trunk. She was pretty sure there was a spare tire, but hadn't checked for extra nuts and bolts when she, ahem, _borrowed_ the car just inside the state line.

As she moved to unlock the trunk, her toe hit something under the bumper. She angled her body to look and saw... the missing tire. All the little hairs on the back of her neck stood up even before she heard the deliberate scuff of a sneaker on pavement behind her – and, more alarmingly, felt a Buzz.

A... peculiar metaphysically _unripe_ Buzz, the kind she'd learned to identify as belonging to a pre-Immortal.

“I hid the hardware,” a young voice called, even as she turned. “If you want it back, you'll listen.” 

There was a prepubesent kid standing out of lunging range, a boy if she had to guess. He had his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket, too tense for the affected casual pose to really work. A head of short curls reflected a coppery sheen in the streetlights, and Amanda had to fight off a brief double vision of her teacher and her own, youngest, student.

“I'm listening,” she shot back impatiently. “What do you want, brat?”

He cautiously took a couple steps forward, now that he'd given a reason for her to, theoretically, not attack. In a quieter voice, he made his pitch: he wouldn't turn her in for the theft if she, in turn, stole something for him. He claimed he had taken pictures of her entering the building and hidden the camera, seperate from the car parts. Amanda was only mostly sure that part was a bluff; she didn't know him well enough to pick apart an actual tell from his general nerves.

It was what he wanted her to break in and get that actually made her consider it.

“You realise that you'll be able to access those files _legally_ when you turn eighteen, right?”

“If you lived in my neighbourhood, you'd know why I don't wanna wait.”

“Where's your neighbourhood?”

“Seacouver Heights.”

Amanda conceded that there were streets in that part of town she definitely wouldn't want to walk around unarmed.

“There might not be any concrete answers for you. You could have been put in the system because your mother was a Jane Doe, or in prison, or left you on the church steps with no paperwork because you were a homebirth after a secret pregnancy.”

The kid gave her a funny look. “That was awfully specific.”

Amanda shrugged. “Might be personal experience.”

“Yeah, well, I remember my mom. I remember when she died. I was about four. So there'll be _something_ about my relatives,” he told her mulishly. “Will you do it or not?”

Looking at the stubborn set of his chin, she decided. Better to know and move on.

“I'll do it. What's your name and birthdate, brat?”

“Richie. Richard H. Ryan.” She'd been right about him being a boy, then. “September 20th, 1974.”

“What's the H stand for?”

He gave her a sour look. “I don't know.”

They parted ways after they agreed on a meeting time and place three weeks hence, and he fetched the nuts and bolts to reaffix her tire from a hideyhole in a nearby alley. Honestly, in most situations Amanda would have left without so much as a pang of remorse, but she couldn't help but remember Kenneth. Richie was not much older than that boy had been when he'd died. Kenneth had only been her student for a year before she'd been caught and hung, and she'd spent years looking for him before accepting that without her to defend him, he'd probably been killed. Given where Richie lived and the kind of risk-taker he already was, she could easily see him winding up Immortal while he was still under four feet tall.

Seriously, he'd taken a _huge_ risk approaching her this way. If she'd been more cold-blooded, she could have eliminated him as a witness and just stolen one of the cars parked in the area as an alternate getaway. He was lucky it had been her.

He was lucky, he was gutsy, and he clearly had no compunctions against crime and trickery.

Hm. It had been eight centuries. Maybe it was time to give this junior partner thing another go...

Three weeks later, she handed over photocopies of the files on a fosterer named Emily Ryan, and what records she'd backtracked of his infancy. Richie was clearly disappointed, like she knew he would be, but they both bracingly agreed it was better to know.

This time, it was Amanda's turn to make a pitch. And like she had, Richie eventually agreed.

 

**France, 1994**

Rebecca whispered goodbye to the man she loved as she knelt by the ruined wall, fully expecting to die at the blade of her former student. 

Then she heard an equally whispery, but inhuman, noise.

Luther and John stared in equal shock at the dart sticking out of the Immortal's arm. Two more joined it before he fell to the ground, unconscious. John and Rebecca rushed to embrace. 

“What just happened?” John asked. 

Someone let out a sharp whistle from further into the ruined walls around the old cloister, and for the second time in a handful of minutes, Rebecca felt a Presence approach. Familiar, but not as fully formed as Luther's. Not yet Immortal. She relaxed somewhat and held John tighter.

“Richie happened,” she murmured.

Sure enough, the young man in question came jogging into view, curls bouncing with each step and a rifle slung behind his back.

“Hello, lovebirds!” he greeted them cheerfully. “I _swear_ I intended to stay out of your hair, but that guy seemed like bad news. You okay, John?”

“I will be,” John replied and briefly squeezed Rebecca tighter.

“What did you shoot him with?” Rebecca asked, watching like a hawk as Richie deftly disarmed the man on the ground. 

“Dog tranquilizers.” Richie flashed a vulpine grin at her, and despite the situation she felt a prickle of fond amusement. Doubtless the guard dogs around something expensive were the original intended recipients of those darts. They all kept a careful eye on Luther as Richie backed away from him, and then Rebecca nudged John to move with her so she could retrieve her sword.

“Considering he broke the rule about not involving others in a Challenge, I'm not even going to pretend to be sorry,” Richie remarked. “Who is this joker, anyway?”

“That,” Rebecca told him grimly, “is Luther.”

Richie swore. “The one whose been taking out his fellow graduates of the Rebecca Horne School of Awesome?”

John made an incredulous noise in the back of his throat. Rebecca kissed him and then pulled out of his arms and readied her sword.

“Normally I wouldn't do this to an Immortal downed by outside action, but like you said, he's the one who broke the rules. Give me some room, gentlemen.”

“Right,” Richie said. He shot two more darts in Luther, gave Rebecca an unrepentant shrug, and guided John by the shoulder out of Quickening range.

Face set, Rebecca brought down her sword.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays, Wreath_of_laurels! This was a fun story to write and I hope you like it.


End file.
